Views of a Passionate Tester...

Monday, December 3, 2012

This was not an ordinary day, at least for me. You don’t get an opportunity daily to attend a workshop on Rapid Software Testing by James Bach. It’s like learning significance of zero from Aryabhatt, the famous mathematician who invented zero. Thanks to Moolya for providing an opportunity to attend the workshop.

I couldn’t sleep properly previous night and keep checking the time after each 20-30 minutes and finally woke up at 5 AM in the morning which is very rare for me. By the time I reached at the venue, it was 7:40 AM and few Moolyavans were already there. At sharp 9 AM the workshop was started and no prize for guessing that it started with thought provoking exercises in James Bach style. Truly said, the exercises picked by James for testers are heart of the workshop. I loved every single exercise and learned what I need to work on to become a credible tester.

There were many things taught by James in workshop and one of them is Sympathetic Testing which took my attention– An approach to test the application to get familiar with it, appreciating the efforts of the developer and ignoring the bugs temporarily unless something is really serious before approaching to real testing. In evening, when I was recalling the things, I realized that I was doing Sympathetic testing for every project without knowing the name. Although, my approach differs to some extent what explained by James. When I get a new application to test I talk to developer and start a tour to learn the application. During the application tour, I note down all probable bugs on my notepad to replicate them later. If I don’t find any blocker I give my feedback to developer about the application without mentioning any bugs. Once I learn application, I start aggressive form of testing. While analysing Sympathetic testing I concluded that it is special form of Sanity Testing. To confirm I must need to talk to James.

Overall, the day was amazing and full of learning. Now, I am desperately waiting for second day of the workshop.